Life can be so complex that we can be busy achieving nothing....
Due to the complexity of life in the 21st Century, we spend a lot of our time...
- running at speed on the hamster wheel of day to day life,
- in a reactionary state where we are driven by outside forces that cause us to unconsciously do whatever we need to do in that moment to deal with what life is throwing at us.
- being busy achieving very little.
This complexity or "busyness" can perpetuate our struggles because we can't see a way out as our vision is limited.
Having Limited Vision is like Running through the woods with your eyes closed
When our days are filled with complexity, we often have limited vision where we can only see the end of this day, this week or this month.
In this state we are largely living an instinctual life where we are driven by our core survival instincts of fight, flight or freeze.
"With limited vision, we only create short term solutions and short term solutions lead to long term problems."
To make progress in life, we must evolve our thinking and our actions to be driven not by survival instincts but by purpose.
It's Time to Slow Down and Think
Very rarely do we take the time to slow down and consider what we are doing and why we are doing it.
From the early morning school run, to our inbox, our colleagues, our WhatsApp and social media, the demands and expectations on us are endless and when we are in a reactionary state, we feel it necessary to jump and respond to every stimulus.
Beware of finding Comfort in the Busyness
Being busy being busy can actually be quite a comfortable place to live from as we never really have to think on our own, but rather are driven to act by outside forces based on other people’s importants and societal demands.
We can be like a puppet that is having its strings pulled for it, making no decisions on its own.
Take Control of What you Do and How you Do it
When we take the time to slow down and actually force ourselves to think about what we want and what’s important to us, we begin the journey of taking back control and being in charge of what we do and how we do it.
When we realise we are in control of what we do, this is both liberating and terrifying as we realise we no longer have to jump at every demand, read every email or respond to every request.
We have the power of choice. To choose what we are going to do, who we are going to be, what is important to us and most importantly, what we are not going to do any more.
"As we make better choices in life, we start to see better results".
We begin to understand that:
- we are the drivers of our own lives,
- we have the ability set our intention,
- we can manage our thinking, our character and our actions,
- we can deliver results that are in line with our own ideals and goals.
Every Successful Person I Know is The Writer, The Director and Main Actor of Their Life Story
Once we take full responsibility for creating and living our life story and being the director and main actor, life becomes exciting and we taste a sense of freedom.
By taking control, we start the process of weeding out all the things that we don’t want in our lives and the parts of us that are not serving us like blame, excuses, complaining and judgement and we start operating from our own defined plan.
This process is an challenging one which requires awareness and discipline where we learn to self manage and intervene with our habitual past self and start to integrate our new defined framework.
"Everything in your life today is a product of who you were in the past. If you want your future to be different, you must change and evolve."
How to be the Writer, Director and Main Actor in Your Life Story
1. Writer
- Write Down what your future looks like
- Write down with a pen on paper, what your life looks like in 5 years from today, don’t spare any details.
- Define things like how much passive income you will be earning and how you will be earning it, define what you will be doing with your time in your profession and how you will be positively serving the world, define your level of health, define the quality of your relationships, what you will look like, your family, your assets and how you will be having fun and enjoying life.
- Craft an Action Plan
- Write a detailed plan on how you will achieve your defined future and how you will close the gap between where you are today and where you want to be in the future
- Set a broad 5 year plan, a more detailed 1 year plan and a very detailed 90 day plan.
- This requires time and effort, however one of our favourite sayings is…
- Write Down what your future looks like
”If it feels like an effort, that’s good. Success requires a LOT of effort”
2. Director
- Daily, set yourself goals and tasks to achieve to get you 1 step closer to your ideal future.
"Small steps taken over time lead to extraordinary results".
- All you have to do is get your actions going in the right direction and take positive, forward moving actions every day.
- Direct your mind to focus on the daily “long term game changers”
- Manage your actions and distractions and be vigilant with staying on your road.
3. Main Actor
- Follow your own instructions and just do it
- Follow your plan
- Take 1 big forward moving action a day
- Invest each hour of your day into building your future.
"Your future is built 1 day at a time. Lay a strong brick every day."
Resources to Help you Take Control of Your Life and Unlock Your Potential
Free Training Video and Ebook
Tools to Manage your Mindset
The Sabre Achieve Diary
Your Personal Success Companion
About the Author
Sally Palmer, one of the founders of Sabre Business World is a Personal and Business High Performance Trainer, Coach and Author with a passion for igniting people through teaching High Performance skills that enable them to ignite their lives. Balancing being a mother of 4 boys and building a business in Zimbabwe, she is fascinated with learning and teaching High Performance skills to help people balance all the demands of life and business to help them thrive in our unpredictable and ever changing world
Thanks Sally . Enjoyed reading this and it’s an eye opener. Setting five year goal plan .